Win-win cooperation remains the only right choice

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 14th Group of 20 (G20) summit in Osaka, Japan from June 27 to 29 at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It will be the seventh consecutive time that President Xi to attend or chair the G20 summit, which reflects the great importance attached by China to the G20 mechanism and the country’s resolution to safeguard multilateralism, build an open world economy, and improve the global governance system.

As an important fruit and embodiment of multilateral cooperation, G20 serves as a significant platform for dialogues and consultations between developed countries and emerging markets as well as developing countries on an equal footing, signifying profound progress in the course of global economic governance. At the most critical moment of the global financial crisis 11 years ago, it was the G20 that brought the world economy, which was falling into the abyss, back to stability and recovery with the spirit of solidarity and partnership.

Last year, during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, President Xi recapitulated the mechanism’s trajectory and pointed out that multilateralism, consultation on an equal basis, and win-win cooperation are the most effective devices against great crises. He stressed that the G20 members should work together to surmount whatever difficulty that lies ahead, engage with each other based on the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, strengthen coordination and cooperation in macro policies, and uphold explicitly the multilateral system. From Russia’s St. Petersburg to Australia’s Brisbane and Turkey’s Antalya, and from China’s Hangzhou to Germany’s Hamburg and Argentina’s Buenos Aires, China has demonstrated profound influence of its proposals and solutions to the international community.

President Xi delivered a series of keynote speeches at the past G20 summits, including “Stressing to Firmly Maintain and Develop an Open World Economy”, “Promoting Innovative Development Achieving Interconnected Growth”, “Innovative Growth That Benefits All”, Building an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy”, “Promoting Openness and Inclusiveness To Achieve Interconnected Growth”, and “Look Beyond the Horizon and Steer the World Economy in the Right Direction”. These important remarks promoting the G20 cooperation demonstrated to the world China’s firm determination to work with the G20 members to safeguard and build an open world economy, and reflected the country’s original aspiration to call on member countries to adhere to the spirit of solidarity and partnership.

The new era calls for stronger leadership. In the face of setbacks in economic globalization, attacks on multilateral mechanisms, scarce willingness of some major economies for collaborative efforts and weakened momentum of international cooperation, G20 is confronted with new challenges while endeavoring to jointly promote strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive development of the world economy. Roberto Azevedo, Director-General of the WTO, said recently that there are hopes from WTO members that trade tensions will be alleviated at the G20 summit in Japan. The immediate priority of the G20 policymakers is to resolve the current trade tensions, while stepping up the modernization of the international trade system. This includes building consensus across countries on how to strengthen WTO rules, especially on subsidies, intellectual property, and trade in services. The goal is to create a more open, more stable, and more transparent trade system, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde pointed out in her article published on IMF website on June 5.

The whole world has focused attention upon the upcoming G20 summit for courageous moves and strategic vision for boosting sound development of world economy. The new era calls for greater efforts. During the G20 Hangzhou summit, inclusive global economic growth was stressed in parallel with the objectives of strong, balanced, and sustainable growth of the global economy for the first time, representing a new consensus in the international community on economic growth.

Today, to follow a people-centered development philosophy and to ensure global growth that is truly equitable have become the common goals of the G20. At the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting held earlier this month in Japan, G20 finance leaders signed the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment, and stressed the importance of maximizing the positive impact of infrastructure to achieve sustainable growth and development. G20 finance leaders’ efforts to realize interconnected and inclusive growth of the global economy coincided with China’s efforts to pursue high standard cooperation to improve people’s lives and promote sustainable development which President Xi stressed in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

“Going forward, win-win cooperation is the only choice for us, be it in good times or bad.” The remark of Xi, a Chinese leader of great insight and wisdom, has pointed the way for economic development of the world and provided a solution to effective governance for the international community.

By Ren Huanyu

(People’s Daily)